


Letters I Never Sent

by hoteldestiel



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22442974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoteldestiel/pseuds/hoteldestiel
Summary: We all want to know what's in that envelope, right?Here are a bunch of things Eliot Waugh wrote and didn't send. And one that maybe, just maybe he will.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 12
Kudos: 81





	Letters I Never Sent

**Author's Note:**

> Once again I present - a thing that wouldn't leave me alone after last week's episode.

Eliot pilfered a stack of parchment paper from the drawer of an old desk in a room where he used to sleep as High King. He grabbed it and ran. Down a hall, around a corner, his feet skittering over one another as they tapped down a spiral staircase and skidded into a hallway. Moments. He only had moments. If he was gone too long, Margo would ask questions he wasn't willing to answer. If he stayed in one place for too long, he risked getting caught. He unfolded the paper, pulled a pen from the breast pocket of his suit jacket and....tried. 

_Q,_

_Don’t do it. Please don’t do it._

_Love,_

_Eliot._

It wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't enough. He crumpled up the pathetic attempt and started on a new sheet, his hand shaking slightly as he set it on the smooth, cream-colored surface. 

_Quentin,_

_We both know I’m not going to send this. So why the fuck am I writing it? Words are - fucking stupid, right? It’s all fucking stupid. I have to do the right thing. I can’t be selfish here, and I know that because of you._

_I hate you for that._

_I love you for everything._

_Fuck._

With a short, soft grunt he pulled this one up, too, balled it, and threw it across the hall where it settled a few feet from the discarded first attempt. How, how was he supposed to do this? How could he convince Quentin Makepeace Coldwater to _not save the world._ The one thing he'd wanted to do from the moment he found out magic really existed. The one thing he believed would give his life meaning. Was it even possible? What could he possibly say that would change that stubborn man's mind? 

_Q,_

_Peaches and Plums. We get proof of concept like that. We can have it again. Fuck the seam. We’ll figure it out. We always do._

_Love,_

_Eliot_

He felt raw, ripped open for the world to see, as he read the words back. Like two fucking fruits could somehow encapsulate an entire lifetime spent together, or like they could explain why he'd said no when they returned. As if anything could manage that Herculean feat. He heard rustling somewhere in the distance. He folded the remaining parchment and tore a stamp off the sheet, sticking it to the outside of an envelope and stowing it alongside the parchment inside his jacket. He ripped the letter attempt in half and returned to the dungeons, his heart aching and his head swimming. 

_Quentin,_

_I wrote....a lot of versions of this. I told Margo I already sent it. She thought I told Josh to drink himself to death. In her defense, I'm not sure that was an entirely unfair accusation. I let it go. I just wanted to save a stamp._

_She wrote one for the last stamp. She told Josh goodbye._

_It’s not the same._

_But I get it._

_I don’t want you to do what you’re about to do, Q. I don’t want you to throw away the chance I have to be braver. I don’t want you to throw away the chance WE have at proving that concept once and for all._

_But I get it._

_Save the world and all that, right?_

_But. Q._

_I love you._

_I really fucking love you._

_If you're gonna die, at least die knowing that._

_Love,_

_Eliot_

He should have been making quick work of his time by this god forsaken time-jumping mailbox, sending the letter he was writing to a dead man about, but instead it was tucked into his back pocket. And here he was, kneeling beside a boulder on the outskirts of town, rushing to summarize the whole contents of his heart in a way that might - not even guaranteed, just a _might -_ get Quentin back. He had time, but it wasn't his. It was borrowed from Margo, borrowed from Whitespire guards, borrowed from any absently wandering questing beasts or gods who might come across his path at any moment. Borrowed time. The only kind of time he knew, it seemed, when it came to Quentin. Borrowed time, but he was determined to make something of it for once. 

_Q,_

_I know you have to._

_Please know I love you._

_We had one lifetime together, I’m sure we’ll find another._

_Peaches and plums, motherfucker. I’ll see you in the next one. I promise not to fuck that one up._

_Eternally yours,_

_Eliot_

That felt - closer, somehow. Maybe it was the copious swearing. But it didn't seem right. What if there wasn't a next one? And besides, he didn't want a fucking timeline 41. He wanted this timeline. This life. He didn't want the slate to have to be wiped clean in order for him to get it right for once. And suddenly, just like that, he was mad again. More than mad. Furious. A strangled something-like-a-yell fought its way out of his throat and he ripped the parchment from the stack and tossed it across the expanse of the forest, as far as he could. "Fuck you, Quentin," he shouted, and the echo of his voice against the trees betrayed him. It mirrored his own brokenness back at him, and he hated it. Hated everything. He scribbled down one letter, and then another in quick succession. 

_Quentin,_

_For fuck’s sake, don’t be the volunteer tomato. You’re smarter than that. You don’t have to be the chosen one._

_-Eliot_

*****

_Quentin,_

_You know I don't give a shit, right? I don't give a flying fuck if you love Alice. If you love me. If you love both of us if you love neither of us if you if you if you._

_I don't fucking care._

_I just want you here to love at all. I want you here to be floppy-haired and doe-eyed and full of belief and faith and YOU underneath all that pain._

_I want you here so I can look at you and you can look at me and we can know we're not alone._

_I want you here so you can love Alice, if you want to._

_Or you can love me, if you want to._

_Or you can love someone else altogether. Or no one. Whatthefuckever, you know?_

_Just. Be here. Come back. Don't do this to us all._

_-Eliot_

Neither of those were right. Jesus. He made small paper projectiles out of them both and threw them, twisting his fingers as the flew through the air so that they caught fire and turned to ash before they ever reached the ground. The magic felt good - terrible, but good. Controlled chaos, he'd heard Fogg say once. The problem was, Brakebills expected chaotic creatures to understand control. Eliot had increasingly prevalent doubts about whether or not that was possible. Whether or not human nature and magician nature diverged in this very specific way. Wherever magic went, tragedy seemed to follow. Whether it was the chicken or the egg, he didn't really care. All he knew was the pain of the heartbreak and the way it made his chest feel hollow at the same time it made his head feel like it was about to explode. He inhaled, closing his eyes as the breath moved out of his lungs. He bent down to grab the pen where he'd dropped it in favor of the spell and knelt down to try again. 

_Q,_

_Some of us need you more than we know how to say._

_Some of us fuck up because we’re scared of being happy._

_Some of us can’t imagine having something so beautiful in our grasp and not breaking it._

_Some of us need you to prove us wrong._

_Prove me wrong,_

_Eliot_

Prove me wrong. As soon as he wrote it, he knew. Maybe he'd known the whole time. He was, so very fucking often, a mystery even to himself. But Quentin wasn't a mystery to him. That's how he knew. Quentin would have loved to prove Eliot wrong. It was, in fact, one of his favorite pastimes. On Earth, in Fillory. Quentin lived to tear down Eliot's carefully constructed charisma. He relished any opportunity to break past Eliot's masterfully-placed cynicism. If he sent that letter, it might just work. But what did "work" look like anyway? If Quentin didn't go to the Seam, what would happen? What did Jane Chatwin mean when she said they won? Hadn't they won before? Couldn't they win again? What was so different about this time? Eliot didn't know. But he couldn't know, either. He folded this one and stored it in the free pocket of his pants. Maybe he didn't need Quentin to prove him wrong. Maybe, for once, he needed to prove himself wrong. 

It went against everything in him. It laughed in the face of his pain and it ripped and pulled and cut at the already very ragged, very wrecked shreds of his heart. It was exactly the opposite of everything he wanted to do, in this moment. Which was exactly why he wrote: 

_Quentin,_

_Jane Chatwin told me something I don’t know how to live with. Something I don’t know how I ever lived without._

_We. We are the reason you ever went to Fillory in the first place. In the first timeline, you ran away to escape the grief of losing me._

_In the first timeline._

_Maybe it’s always been us. Maybe we’re the Romeo and Juliet. Maybe we have the great love. But the great love always gets the tragic ending, right?_

_I asked her to save you again. She said no. I thought I could find a way to do it anyway. I'm wondering now if she was right._

_If I saved you, could I live with myself? Knowing the win that we'd be giving up? Honestly? Probably. Because I'm selfish like that, you know?_

_And that's the difference, I think. Between the two of us. The difference that counts. If I could save you, you wouldn't let me._

_I know what you’re about to do. I know I can’t stop you._

_I also know we found each other. In the first timeline. In this timeline. In the timeline we created for ourselves._

_I didn't mean it when you said we should try and I told you neither of us would choose each other. I was scared. You scare me. You make me feel alive, and that - scares me shitless. But I suspect you maybe knew that. I'm sorry I didn't make it easier for you to call me on it._

_We’ll find each other again. Do what you have to do._

_We are the proof, Quentin._

_Yours,_

_Eliot._

_P.S. Maybe I wasn’t your first choice in every timeline. Maybe you weren’t mine, either. But Quentin Coldwater, you are the love of my lives. And I’ll be damned if you go to the grave not knowing that._

Before he had a chance to think himself out of the moment. Before he could let his wants catch up with the tiny seed of rightness he felt in his gut, he hastily folded the paper and placed it in the pre-stamped envelope. And then, with slow, deliberate strokes, he addressed it. He wrote Quentin's name with reverence, feeling every line like the cipher to a code that his heart understood when his head would not. When he was finished he stood, brushed the dirt off his pants, and delivered Margo's final letter to Josh.

His borrowed time was up, for now. So he stowed the letter in his pocket and returned to his last _real_ lifeline. The one that still existed, in this plane. He'd have his chance soon enough. And maybe by then the seed of rightness would have grown into something courageous enough to do something with that chance.

_To: Quentin Coldwater_

_Before He Went to the Seam_

God, he hoped that seed would grow. 


End file.
